


Growth

by seekingsquake



Series: Crash Into Me [2]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Brian Banner's A+ Parenting, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Conspiracy Theories, F/M, Flashbacks, General Ross is a dick, Human Experimentation, Nightmares, Past Child Abuse, Sort of an AU, Steve Rogers gets a brand new origin story, Trigger warning: child abuse, lack of communication/poor communication in a romantic relationship, non-graphic heterosexual sex, pre-avengers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-10
Updated: 2015-02-10
Packaged: 2018-03-11 14:20:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3329423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is 100% not where he wants to be, and he can't remember how he even got talked into this. He thinks back on his life and wonders how he got here. Everything is such a blur since his three weeks in LA two years ago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Growth

**Author's Note:**

> The sequel to Youth, and the second of three in the series. 
> 
> A big thank you to my beta, Werevampiwolf, for helping me keep things in line and for being my resident researcher/walking Bruce Banner encyclopedia. 
> 
> I am not associated with Marvel and therefore do not own the characters or anything else you may recognize in this work.  
> Please do not repost or reupload this piece anywhere without consent. If you ask, I'm sure we can work something out :]

“You’ve got your ball

you’ve got your chain

tied to me tight

tie me up again.”

✧✧✧

They sit together in the university library, each going over different material even while his right hand is linked with her left over the tabletop. She huffs a breath, then snorts with disdain before flipping the page of the Scientific American that she’s browsing. He uses her distraction to duck and swivel his thumb, pinning hers against the fleshy part of his fisted index finger.

“Bruuuuce.” It’s almost a whine, and he bites back a smile.

“It’s not my fault you weren’t paying attention.” He pushes the journal he’s peer reviewing away from himself and snags the magazine out of Betty’s free hand. “What’s got you in a twist, anyway?”

She tangles the fingers of their connected hand together and sighs. “I know he’s a genius or whatever, and a rockstar in the scientific community, but when I pick up this magazine I want to learn about science, not about the new arrangement of the baby Stark’s facial hair. Seriously. They’re running an interview and they can’t wrap their brains around the fact that he’s got a goatee now.”

Her words sound distance and fuzzy in his ears, like he’s suddenly got his head in a fishbowl. He’s looking down at a spread on Tony Stark, all iron pressed suits and camera ready grins, but all he can really see is a kid with a scraggly beard standing just on the edges of the light of a street lamp. He hears, “I’m Tony, by the way,” and he can almost hear that voice in his ear, that conversation.

_“You’d look good with a goatee. Your current facial hair is a little... um...,”_

_“Homeless?”_

_“Well. I was going to say ‘unkempt’, but homeless is really it. If you cleaned it up though, I bet you’d look really handsome.”_

He stares down at the pages, and he’s completely flabbergasted, and he almost can’t breathe.

Betty hasn’t stopped talking, but her voice doesn’t become clear to him again until she says, “He seems like a total ass, but I can’t deny that the new look is rather handsome. Whoever’s in charge of his styling sure had a stroke of genius.”

Bruce shakes himself, almost choking on a nervous laugh. It can’t be. The chances of meeting Tony Stark, of spending a period of thirty hours with _the_ Tony Stark, and never once having any idea? No, it’s got to be just some weird coincidence. But he takes a good look at the page and tries to match them up in his head, the magazine Tony and the memory of the Tony that kissed him breathless on a mattress that didn’t have sheets, and he’s about to completely disregard the whole thing until he flips the page. It’s another picture of Stark, the interview taking up a fair chunk of the magazine, and this one’s a close up of his face. He’s grinning, and it’s sharp and cocky, and suddenly Bruce is back in a candle lit apartment and hearing the words _my ego can always use the boost._

Bruce flips the magazine closed almost violently and shoves it back across the table. Betty laughs. “Yeah, right? He can’t fill his father’s shoes just by putting some scruff on his face. Besides, I don’t really think Howard Stark is the kind of guy you should want to emulate.”

“No?” Bruce asks absently as he begins gathering his things. He just wants to get as far away from that magazine as he can, and from the memories of his time in Los Angeles. He wants to be able to go on pretending that he doesn’t regret coming home.

“My dad met him a few times for work, said he was a drunk prick.”

All Bruce can really think about is the fact that he had, at one point in time last winter, known Tony Stark. Given enough time, he could have loved Tony fucking Stark. He takes deep breaths because he’s on the verge of an anxiety attack and he can’t really place why, and he squeezes Betty’s hand the whole way home.

✧✧✧

This is 100% _not_ where he wants to be, and he can’t remember how he even got talked into this. He thinks back on his life and wonders how he got here. Everything is such a blur since his three weeks in LA two years ago. The pen is heavy in his hands, and as he’s going over the fine print, he’s panicking. He knows he should have gotten a lawyer to go over the whole thing with him but that shit’s expensive, he’s been saving his funds, and Selvig had promised that everything would be fine. He pinches the bridge of his nose under his glasses, and he can hear the General grumbling from the corner of the room.

“What’s wrong, kiddo?”

Bruce shifts his chair to the left a little to make room for Doctor Selvig to lean over and take a peek. “They want me to put all the other projects I’m involved with on the shelf until this is finished,” he murmurs nervously. “But Betty’s using me as a sample subject in a couple of her DNA projects, and if I sign this she has to stop her work. They’re projecting this project to last ten years! I can’t work on anything else for ten years. I don’t think I can do this.”

“Hey,” Selvig murmurs as he moves to stand behind Bruce, massaging his shoulders. “I thought Elizabeth was behind you on this?”

“Well yeah, but-,”

“And you need the money, kiddo. Don’t you want to be able to give her something nice?”

“Are we doing this or not?” General Ross suddenly snaps. “Because we can find somebody else. But none of us have time for this bullshit hesitation, Banner.”

And when Bruce feels Selvig squeeze his shoulders reassuringly, when he thinks about that engagement ring Betty was looking at last month, he signs the contract. His hands are trembling and he feels like he’s selling his soul, but he signs anyway. Selvig’s signed contracts like this before and everything was fine, Betty wouldn’t ask him to do something that would hurt him, and it _is_ pretty cool that he’ll be the youngest and brightest scientist on the team, as Aunt Susan had pointed out. Besides, if he’s as smart as everyone seems to think he is, maybe he can get this project done sooner than expected and get back to doing his own thing.

When all the papers are signed, he passes them over to General Ross. The handshake they share is brief, and Bruce gets the distinct impression that the General is severely unimpressed with him. He used to get that feeling around his own father when he was a boy, and he hates that he’s frightened of Betty’s dad. But maybe over the course of this project, he’ll be able to prove to the General that he’s worth something.

Maybe he’ll be able to prove it to himself.

✧✧✧

His hands are pinned above his head, held together by her thin fingers, and his feet are braced against the bed as he rocks up into her body. Her delighted laugh devolves into a moan, and she’s panting, “Yeah, give it to me, c’mon Bruce.”

He wants to feel her melt against him, wants to feel the slide of her skin over his chest, his abdomen, his fucked up ribs. Instead, he bites his lip and thrusts up into her with more force. His breath is stuttering and it feels like his blood is boiling under his skin, but he’s so far away. It’s never enough. He’s never satisfied at the end of their encounters, only exhausted, and he tries to remember if it has always been empty like this.

He can’t.

He asserts a dominance he usually leaves to her, pulls his hands out of her grasp, and rolls them over so that he’s covering her body with his own. He drives into her and he’s gritting his teeth and something is still very not right and he’s almost furious because he can’t figure out what it is, or why.

Betty’s hands are fisted into the pillow, and that seems very important. “Hold me, Baby.” He can hardly get the words out, and he has to ask her over and over before he finally feels her fingers grasp his hips. It’s not enough, not at all what he wants, but it’s as good as he’s going to get. He buries his face in her neck and keeps his back arched so that his torso is held away from hers. One of his hands snakes down between them to help her along because he’s tired and he just wants it to be done, and for only a moment she’s clawing at his back as she’s climaxing around him. He’s about to sink into a feeling of intense relief, about to kiss the shit out of her because suddenly he doesn’t feel so fucking alone, but then her hand is gone and he’s cold. She’s finished, waiting for him to catch up to her, and all of a sudden he’s enraged because that’s how it always is, isn’t it? He’s always alone and she’s always waiting for him to get to where she wants him to be, and he’s so angry he feels like he’s going to be sick. He pulls out and away abruptly, and he’s slamming the door to the ensuite bathroom before she even has time to blink open her eyes.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, staring into the basin of the sink. Long enough for his erection to deflate and the condom to feel gross against his skin. Long enough for Betty to come and see what he’s up to. He’s not even aware of her presence at first, not until she’s pulled a sweater down over his head and forced his arms into the sleeves. She flips down the lid of the toilet and sits, leading him to sit on the ground between her knees. Her fingers tangle in his hair, massage his scalp, and he wants to snap at her because all the tension’s in his shoulders, in his upper back. He bites his tongue.

“Are you ready to come back to bed, Babe?” Her voice is soft, concerned, and the anger drains from him as if he’d been cut open and it’d been bled out.

“Yeah, okay.”

Betty leads him back into the bedroom, tucks him in on his side of the bed, and presses a kiss to his lips before rolling away and flicking off the lamp. He tries not to think about the fact that she can’t comfort him unless his upper body is hidden from view, tries not to think about the fact that she has never slept curled up right beside him, never placed her head on his chest after that very first time when she’d asked him what’d happened to him. He runs through a mental list of everything he can think of that he knows in hopes to distract himself, and while it does keep him awake, it doesn’t keep him distracted.

Because he knows that she will never love him enough to overcome her discomfort with his body.

Because he knows that he’ll never love himself enough to leave her.

He wishes he could forget that he’d let a random stranger touch him, and that that stranger had showed him a tenderness, a willingness to meet his needs, that he’s never gotten from Betty. He wishes he could forget the press of lips against his shoulder blades, the way it felt to have fingers trace the notches of his spine and the dips of his ribs as if they weren’t the messiest thing they’d ever touched. He wishes he could forget the feeling of being wholly desired. He wants to. He tries.

He can’t.

✧✧✧

They’ve been together for five years when she starts seriously bringing up the idea of marriage. They’ve talked about it before, vaguely, as a goal for the future, but she isn’t being so vague about it anymore. “How old would your cousin be if we were to get married next spring?”

“Betty.” Bruce is tired. He’s been in the lab sixteen hours today, just like yesterday, and the day before that, and almost every day before that for the last two years. He doesn’t want to talk or think or fuck, and he’s tired of these wedding conversations, and he just wants a moment where he isn’t being suffocated by the Ross family persistence.

The General was unbearable today.

“It’s a serious question, Babe, because Jenny would be the only one who couldn’t drink if we don’t schedule it correctly. I know she turns twenty one next year, I just don’t remember when.”

“Baby, can we please talk about this later?”

“Bruce...,”

“Betty, Baby, please. Look, I don’t even know if we should get married at all until after this project. We’re both so busy as it is, and I’m working with your father, and it just seems messy and rushed, alright?”

Betty sputters, and her eyes are wide and unhappy. “But that’s not for another projected eight years! We’d be thirty three! Bruce, I don’t want to wait until my thirties to get married. I want to have at least one child by the time I’m thirty two.”

Bruce sighs heavily and buries his face in the pillow, muffling a groan that is 20% exhaustion and 80% annoyance. “Please. Just let me get some rest. I have to be in early tomorrow.”

They’ve shared a bed for four and a half years. Betty is used to Bruce’s grumpy moods and dramatic avoidance. It all used to make her smile because she found it cute, but now she wonders why her partner has a hard time looking her in the eye when he tries to ask for what he wants. It makes her want to push him, to force him to look at her. But she won’t. She’d tried once, and Bruce had fled for three weeks to the other side of the country. No matter what, she isn’t going to let that happen again. She wants to marry this man, carry his children, live together on the Oregon coast somewhere. She doesn’t want to have to drag him back from a hovel in the bowels of Los Angeles.

She brushes gentle fingers over the curve of his shoulder, presses a kiss into the skin just behind his ear, and sighs as she settles herself back against the pillows. It isn’t until she’s turned her attention back to the movie she’s got playing on the bedroom television that Bruce’s hand snakes out from under the blankets and into hers. She watches the light from the screen flicker on the wall, feels as their hands link in that familiar comfort of a thumb war, and tries not to worry about the fact that Bruce is thinking, trying to focus instead of trying to sleep.

Betty’s nearly fallen asleep sitting slumped against the headboard when the whisper of Bruce’s voice rouses her. “Eight years is a long time.”

“Hmm?” She sinks down to lay beside him, their thumbs still evading each other even as her movements turn sluggish with sleep. “Sure is, Baby.”

“Would you leave me if I made you wait that long?”

She doesn’t answer, can’t. Her voice has dropped off and her eyes slip shut. Her thumb stills against his, and she can’t even form the words to respond to him in her mind, let alone figure out what those words should be. She’s asleep before she can even try to convince herself to stay awake.

“Betty?” Bruce rolls onto his side to look at her, and he’s engulfed by a suffocating sense of dread when he realizes she’s fallen into sleep. He stares at her for a moment longer before dropping a soft kiss to her forehead and carefully climbing out of bed. There isn’t a lot of work he can finish for the General from home without his lab equipment and simulations and samples, but he can go over some of the data again, can reevaluate his equations. The more he can finish, the faster he can get it done, the less time she has to wait for him. Because she’s always left waiting for him.

It slips his mind that every night they crawl into bed together, she always falls asleep first.

✧✧✧

“Fuck!”

There’s a small group gathered in his kitchen, all tittering with frustration, sleep deprivation, and anxiety. Over the course of the past year, Bruce had started bringing more and more work home with him at night, shoving whatever lab equipment he could get his hands on pretty much anywhere in the house that it would fit and still be attached to a power source. Most of it’s down in the garage, some of it scattered around in the basement, a few pieces up in the attic. But the more he started doing from home, the more he started bringing the other researchers and scientists home with him, too. Sixteen hour work days in the lab with his team turned into sixteen hour work days in the lab with his team and six more hours of work at his house with his team, pouring over everything they could, running simulations over and over, testing and retesting everything.

Even with all the extra time everyone was putting in, they weren’t making nearly as much progress as anyone hoped.

“Fuck Steve Rogers! His whole life was a fucking fluke!” Bruce is practically pulling his own hair out, but it’s a sentiment that’s answered with agreement of varying enthusiasm from everyone in the room.

“I don’t know what we’re missing,” Damon Venteri, the newest addition to the team and a scientist that Bruce had had interning with him a year or two ago, mutters under his breath, “but I’m almost ready to start throwing random numbers into the formula and seeing what that does to our projections.”

“The Gulf War was only twenty seven years ago. Why is all the data from Project Rebirth gone?” Betty pipes up from where she’s posted at the sink, washing some large green grapes and dropping them into a bowl beside her.

“Thanks to Stark Industries, technology has improved leaps and bounds since the ‘90’s,” Venteri responds as he flicks through screens of data on his tablet. “And a lot of the secret government stuff never made the transfer from the old systems to the new ones. Data has gone missing from all branches of the government. It’s a new way to censor the past, to make sure us newbies don’t ever see anything we aren’t supposed to concerning secrets from back then. Project Rebirth was never supposed to run, was of utmost classification, need to know basis only type deal. It’s convenient for all the higher ups that almost all of it’s gone. Nobody can be held accountable for anything when there’s no proof it ever existed.”

“It existed,” Bruce growls as he goes over the results from the DNA tests he ran back at the base earlier. “We know Rogers existed. We know they _changed_ him. Fuckers left us that much. But how are we supposed to recreate it when we have no idea about how they did it the first time around?”

“I can’t wrap my head around the fact that they even lost their lab rat in the first place,” Patricia Wolman, a radiation specialist and biologist that had been drafted to the project before Bruce had been, complains from the kitchen table where she’s comparing Roger’s original medical file to his serum souped up medical file. “I mean, physically, he’s like a completely different person. The structure of his DNA was consistently and systematically... replaced. They didn’t just improve him. They changed the stuff his body was made out of, changed the way his chromosomes combined. What they managed to do to him, it’s gorgeous. I can’t believe they fucking lost him in the middle of the fucking Iraqi desert.”

“Did they really lose him, though?” Venteri questions as he snags a handful of grapes out of the bowl by Betty’s elbow and pops them into his mouth. “Or did they get rid of him?”

Wolman snorts. “Why in God’s name would they get rid of him?”

“Human experimentation of that calibre with those kinds of results, especially in times of global unrest, would have had the UN all over our asses,” Venteri responds as he ducks into the fridge and fishes around. “I mean, it’s not like they were testing shampoo or skin care products. They were dicking around with radiation. And there was no way it would have been able to be kept a secret if Rogers ever made it home. How would anyone be able to explain changes like that?”

“So, what? They created the perfect human being out of a runt just to see if they could do it, sent him into a warzone, killed him, and left him in a sandy grave so that no one would catch on just so that a quarter of a century later they could get a new team of scientists to try and do it again?” Wolman snatches a pepperoni stick right out of Venteri’s hands and bites into it viciously. “That doesn’t make any fucking sense.”

“Can we stop with the conspiracy theories and just get back to work?” Bruce snaps. “I’d like to get some fucking sleep tonight, at some point.”

“No, seriously, I want to know why you think they’d go to all that trouble to make and dispose of him, just to have people try to remake him later down the line. There’s got to be a reason beyond-,”

“Yeah,” Venteri interrupts, “the reason being that Americans need to do something two or three times before they figure out it’s a bad idea. Example: Bush.”

“But how can you say that what they did to Rogers was a bad idea? Everything was perfect,” Wolman insists as Bruce huffs a sigh and rubs the bridge of his nose under his glasses.

“Perfect for a year, until he disappeared,” Venteri agrees, “but we don’t know if there were any long term side effects. We don’t know what his mental state was like. We don’t know what it did to his life span. Yes, there was a tonne of instant gratification. Yes, it seemed to work the way they had only dared hope it would. But we don’t know if it would have stayed like that, because they lost him. So, we don’t actually know if worked, not really. We don’t know if it was worth it.”

Bruce only holds out three more hours before he sends Venteri and Wolman home. It’s either that, or strangling one of them until they stop arguing about whether or not the American government murdered test subject CA017220, codename Captain America. He collapses onto the couch in the living room and throws his left arm over his face, annoyed and so, so tired.

Betty sits beside him, close enough that their arms are brushing but not close enough to be cuddling or anything. She’s got Rogers’ post-serum file in her lap, is looking at the photos of him, her tongue pressed into her cheek. “It made him perfect, huh?”

Bruce sighs. “Guess so.”

“Would have improved his life a whole lot if he’d been able to come home.”

“Yeah, well, not being tiny and sick anymore would make anyone feel better. Having a strong, healthy body improves quality of life exponentially.”

When Betty’s gaze finally lands on Bruce it’s heavy, speculative. “The things it did to him... He probably didn’t suffer any chronic pain or anything.”

“He didn’t suffer chronic pain before, either.” Bruce can’t follow her train of thought, is too exhausted to do anything except be lead along.

“I think he probably did, even if it doesn’t say anywhere. Have your ribs been bothering you lately, Babe? You were tossing and turning all last night.”

“They’re okay,” he murmurs, not wanting to admit that taking a deep breath while lying on his back had been taxing, but lying on his sides had been painful. Sometimes his bones ache where they’d been broken, and his bones had been broken in a hell of a lot of places. Last night had been rough. “I just had a hard time getting comfortable.”

A few minutes of silence pass between them before Betty starts leafing through the file again. Then, “He sure was handsome.”

Bruce grunts, it could be agreement or simple acknowledgement, and wonders why he hasn’t crawled into bed yet. Wonders when being twenty six started feeling like being fifty. And then abruptly Betty is in his lap, straddling his thighs, and kissing him soft and sweet. She smells faintly of her vanilla raspberry perfume, and her lips taste waxy with Chap Stick. It’s intimate but completely non-sexual, her hands gently cupping his face while his arms are wrapped loosely around her hips. A good few minutes pass with them just kissing like that, and then their lips break apart and she rests her forehead against his. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, the tension in his body draining away.

But when she speaks, her voice barely a ghost of a whisper over his skin, it all comes rushing back. “If you had the chance to be changed like Rogers was, would you take it?”

He keeps his voice measured when he asks, “Would you want me to?”

She doesn’t say anything, but the way her fingers twitch minutely over the skin by his eye and the way her breath catches softly before evening back out is answer enough for him.

✧✧✧

Things have been hectic since Bruce’s thirtieth birthday. Everything had been moving along steadily for the past four years, slowly, but steadily nonetheless, and he had thought that the team had been making good progress with the serum. Everything came crashing down very suddenly and all at once, following the trend that Bruce’s life had taken up to this point. The project had come under fire from Culver’s ethics department and now everybody’s jobs were on the line, the General had been more vicious than usual as of late, and his aunt had come down with a serious lung infection and was in the hospital. Everything hit in the course of two months, and Bruce was frantically trying to stay afloat. Had it not been for Betty, he was sure he wouldn’t have been managing as successfully as he had been.

As it was, Betty was also beginning to feel the strain. Bruce was distant, almost never home anymore, extremely preoccupied by the goings on in the lab. When he was home, Wolman was with him. Betty knew that Bruce had no ulterior motives for that, that the project was just starting to come to the stage where her expertise was incredibly valuable, but she was far less certain of Wolman herself. On top of all that, Bruce had been rather emotional as of late, coming home stressed and with a touchy temper that could be both ignited and diffused just by Betty’s presence. He was also suffering through bouts of crippling anxiety, nightmares plagued him the occasional time he could manage to fall asleep, and the feud between him and her father was reaching a breaking point. Betty was losing her man to everything else and that just wasn’t okay. She wasn’t ready to let him go, didn’t want to be alone, and he still needed her, damnit. She needed to do something, it needed to be drastic, and it needed to be soon. She’d figure something out.

She’d have to, if she wanted to keep what was hers.

✧✧✧

When he comes in, he’s too tired to notice the smell of food cooking at first. His shoulders are tense to the point of pain, his eyes are pounding behind his glasses, and he’s in the throes of denying that he’s got the flu while simultaneously fighting off his case of the flu. He kicks off his shoes, drops his jacket haphazardly on top of everything else in the hall closet, and nearly stumbles down the hall toward the kitchen.

“Hey Baby,” Betty greets him from the stove, smiling gently and keeping her voice soft.

He appreciates the effort. He snags himself a glass of water, downs the whole thing in a couple of measured gulps, and drapes himself over her back. He feels like shit, but her body heat is comforting. It is from his place over her shoulder that he sees inside the pot she’s stirring. “Are you...?”

She sighs. “Okay, I know you’re not feeling too good Babe, but. We’re... having company tonight. So I thought I’d make your mom’s chili for you, because it’s your favourite. I’ll start the spaghetti in a little bit, and I’ve bought a loaf of French bread. I’m going to do a salad in a bit too. But one thing at a time, right?”

Bruce’s whole body reacts to the news of company, almost physically shuddering just at the mention of having someone over. His voice is strained as he manages to ask, “Who?”

“Daddy’s going to be here around seven, okay?”

Again with the full body shake. He sounds like a child when he finally kickstarts his brain and whines, “But why? He was in the lab all day. He actually hates me. Why does he want to have dinner with us?”

Betty almost laughs, but it comes out as more of a choked out, nervous twitter. “He doesn’t hate you, Bruce. Besides, I have something I want to tell you both, so I invited him over. And don’t start! He’ll be gone right after dinner. Don’t give me that look, Babe.”

Bruce isn’t pouting. Not really. It’s just the headache. “Can’t you just tell me now, and then I’ll go grab a burger or something so that you can have a nice dinner with your dad? Without me?”

Betty turns in his arms to face him, her eyes serious. “But I made your mom’s Cincinnati Chili just for you. You’d rather have McDonalds?”

“No, I wouldn’t rather have McDonalds! I would rather not have dinner with your father after I’ve spent sixteen hours in the lab with him breathing down my fucking neck. But okay. You have something to say that we both need to hear. Fine. That’s fine. Can I have a preview, at least?”

“You can wait the hour until he gets here, Bruce. Now go shower up, okay? You’ll feel better.”

He kisses her shoulder, then her lips briefly before making for the ensuite bath. His shower is long, hot, but it does little to ease the tension in his body. He’s so tired, and contrary to what Betty insists, he’s actually about ninety six percent positive that the General genuinely hates him. He doesn’t want the General over for dinner, he wants to fight her on it, but she went out of her way to make his favourite comfort food and just because Bruce never had a good relationship with his father doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have one with hers. So he’ll bite the bullet, he’ll do his best to play polite, and he’ll kiss her long and hard as soon as the General leaves. Then, he’ll go over his notes from today’s work in the lab, send a few voice memos to Wolman and Venteri, then hop into bed.

He leaves the bedroom dressed in freshly pressed slacks and a button down with the sleeves rolled to the elbows to help Betty finish up in the kitchen. It’s not casual like he’d normally wear at home, but he isn’t allowed to relax just yet. His chest feels tight with anxiety because not only is the General coming, but Betty has news, apparently, and for the life of him he can’t figure out what it could be. A promotion, a raise? He isn’t even sure what she’s doing at work right now. A transfer? He can’t leave the Willowdale area without breaking his contract with the military. Is she sick? Is she dying? Oh, God, because having Aunt Susan in the hospital isn’t enough.

The first thing that happens when he walks back into the kitchen though, is Betty grabbing his hand and starting a thumb war. She looks right up into his eyes, smiles gently, and says, “Focus on me right now, okay?”

He lets her engage him, lets the feel of her hand against his ground him enough to calm the noise in his head. “Okay.”

“Everything’s okay. Nothing’s wrong. Okay?”

Their thumbs battle, but he never looks away from her eyes. She looks a little nervous, but happy. Happier than he’s seen her in a while. He breathes slowly, blinks, pins her thumb. “Okay.”

Her smile is worth it. “Good. Now can you toss the salad for me? There’s a box of croutons in the pantry.”

They finish dinner together quietly, but the tension has lessened a great deal. Until the knock on the door. Bruce nearly jumps right out of his skin before Betty calms him with a kiss to his cheek and a shoulder squeeze as she passes him to answer the door. Bruce sets the table, and the General doesn’t bother to acknowledge him as he takes a seat at the head. Bruce sits as far away from him as possible, and with a sigh Betty sits between them. The silence is hardly comfortable, and Betty does her best to combat it by asking her father about his day, but he grunts through his responses while shovelling food into his face like he’s in a hurry.

After what feels like a small eternity, the General finally puts down his fork and turns to Betty. “What am I doing here, Darlin’?”

Betty slowly lowers her utensils, and Bruce feels like he’s going to throw up. He’s hardly managed to eat anything, and he tells himself it’s the flu. Betty takes a deep breath, shoots Bruce a quick, reassuring smile, and turns to the General slowly. “Well... I’m pregnant.”

Bruce’s mouth is dry, he thinks his hands are shaking, and he’s all of a sudden quite dizzy. The General’s voice is low, dangerous as he says, “Say that again,” and Bruce can feel the dread unfurl in his stomach and crawl up his throat. He’s going to choke on it, or suffocate, or vomit.

“I’m pregnant!” She laughs a sound that’s both nervous but excited, but Bruce only registers it after he registers the fact that the General’s on his feet and coming around the side of the table.

He drags Bruce to his feet, nearly shakes him as he spits out, “You son of a bitch,” and punches him hard in the face.

Betty shrieks, but Bruce is too busy ducking and running to pay that much attention. He bolts up the stairs for the bedroom with the inane thought that maybe he can hide under the bed because that often worked for him as a child, but the General is thundering up the stairs behind him, chasing him in his own damn home, and he knows hiding under the bed isn’t going to cut it. Instead, he locks the bedroom door, throws open the window, and jumps. He hits the ground hard and lays there for a minute, thanking God that he lives in a house that’s only two stories tall.

He doesn’t lay there for too long though, because he hears the shuddering crack of the bedroom door being kicked in. He’s on his feet and bolting into the wooded area beyond the yard before he can even really think about it.

He doesn’t know how long he runs for, doesn’t know if he’s still being followed. He stops at the edge of a creek, collapses right there in the damp dirt and sobs. He’s eight years old, his mother has left him behind, and his father is going to beat him senseless if he hears Bruce crying. He’s seven years old and he’s too scared to open his Christmas presents for fear of how his father will react to smiles, laughter, happiness. He’s six years old and he plays sick to stay home from school so that his mother won’t be left alone in the house with Daddy. He’s five years old and _I know it hurts Baby, but Daddy loves you. He doesn’t know how to show it but he does. If we wrap a bandage around it and put you in a sweater, no one will know. See? All better._ He’s four years old and he’s under his bed, pressed right up against the wall and screaming while the monster reaches for him, tries to drag him out. Mommy’s crying _Brian he’s just a little boy! He’s your son! God, he didn’t do anything wrong. Punish me, punish me instead. Brian please don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt my baby._

Bruce is thirty years old, curled up on a creek bank, shaking and nearly biting through his lower lip to keep from crying. He tells himself to breathe, he tells himself that he’s not that little boy anymore, he tells himself that nobody’s going to hurt him. But his face is sore from the force of the General’s blow and he can’t stop fucking crying and he’s never felt like more of a coward.

He’s jerked from his thoughts when he hears rustling in the brush, but before he can pull himself up enough to escape, Betty comes into view. The relief is overwhelming, but the shame that follows is almost more so. He doesn’t get up, can hardly look at her, but lets her pull him into her lap when she kneels beside him anyway.

“It’s okay,” she whispers as she tangles her fingers into his hair. “I’m sorry. If I’d known he’d react violently I wouldn’t have... God, Babe, you’re freezing. Let’s go home, okay? We’ll crawl into bed and talk about it there. How’s that sound?” She stands carefully and pulls him to his feet, then leads the way back to the house. It’s rather slow going since Bruce is almost zombie-like in his movements and needs to be steered rather extensively, but they manage.

The first thing she does is run him a shower, then she sweeps up the mess from the kicked-in door and climbs into bed. She rubs her lower abdomen absently as she thinks about the look on Bruce’s face down at dinner. He hadn’t looked happy or even at all surprised, just scared. More than scared. She couldn’t even really fathom the fear on his face, because she had seen the way he looked at kids whenever they went out together; adoration, wonder, _longing_. She thought that’s what he wanted, she thought that’s what she was giving him.

The water shuts off in the bathroom and she rolls over to watch the door. He comes out with a towel draped over his head and the most miserable look on his face. Beads of water are dripping down his back and legs but neither pay any mind to it when she pulls the blankets back from his side of the bed, reaches out for him and murmurs, “Oh, come here.”

He crawls in beside her, buries his face into her hair, and tries to take deep breaths even though she can feel him trembling. His voice is hoarse and muffled as he asks, “What are we going to do?”

She turns so that they’re eye to eye, then grabs his hands and brings them up to her face. She kisses his fingers, his knuckles, his palms. “We’re going to be a family,” she tells him, looking right into his eyes. “We’re going to take care of our baby, and we’re going to take care of each other, and everything’s going to be fine.”

“But what if... Betty, what if I... I’m not, I, I don’t know how. I just, I don’t know how.”

“Don’t know how to what, Babe?”

The breath Bruce pulls is shuddering, broken, afraid. He’s got his eyes closed against her gaze as if he’s trying to defend himself from her. “I don’t know how to be anybody’s dad. What if I can’t do it? What if I--,”

“You’ll learn,” Betty cuts him off, her lips pressed against his throat as she tucks her head under his chin, against his shoulder. “You’ll learn. And you’ll love your child, and that’s all that matters. Loving it, that’s all that matters. And you’ll be so good at that Bruce, I know you will. You have so much love to give. You’re going to be great.”

She kisses him until he falls asleep, seeking refuge in unconsciousness. There are stress lines around his eyes and mouth even then, and she wonders what his nightmares will be like tonight. He never talks about them to her, but sometimes he mumbles. Sometimes he screams.

✧✧✧

He can hear them screaming from down the hall, can hear the unmistakable sound of his fist striking her over and over. He’s curled up in the corner under the bed, his little hands pressed over his mouth to keep any whimpers or sobs from escaping. If he stays small and quiet, maybe Daddy won’t find him this time. If he stays hidden away, maybe Daddy will forget that there was anything to punish Mommy for.

There’s the creak of the door, and then a small sliver of yellow light that turns into a sweeping arc that reaches under the bed and over his toes more easily than Daddy’s fingers could. He holds his breath as a tall shadow moves through the sweep of yellow, skitters over his toes, up his legs and tummy. He holds his breath, but it feels like he couldn’t breathe even if he wanted to, and he prays.

_Dear God, I promise to always be good and eat my veggies without thinking bad things if you please don’t let Daddy find me._

_Dear God, I promise to grow up and be a pastor if you please don’t let Daddy find me._

_Dear God, please don’t let Daddy find me._

The shadow moves, and the mattress creaks above his head, and he can almost feel Daddy’s growl when he discovers that the lump on the bed is made of a pillow and a teddy bear instead of a boy.

“Robert.”

The mattress creaks again and the shadow moves, and all he can see now are the lines of Daddy’s pants. His breath is coming in harsh little drags through his nose and he knows what’s coming, can almost feel the lashes he’s gonna get before he’s even gotten them.

“Robert Bruce Banner. Are you hiding under that bed again?”

He needs to say something, knows that if he doesn’t say anything he’s gonna get it even worse than if he just admits it _yes Daddy Sir sorry Sir_ but he can’t. He whimpers instead and squeezes his eyes closed, because the only thing worse than not answering his Daddy is crying in front of him.

“Are you a coward, Robert? Are you a scared, cowardly little boy?”

The shadow is moving, the lines of Daddy’s legs are bending, and then there are hands reaching under the bed. The fingers skitter over his toes but aren’t long enough to grab, and then there is more shifting.

“Are you a coward, Robert?” The mattress is flipped off the bed frame and tossed to the side of the room with a growl. “Are you a little fucking coward, Boy?” The bed frame is lifted right off the ground and thrown against the wall with a crash. Daddy is howling with rage, and he can’t fight the tears anymore even though he still hasn’t removed his little fists from his mouth. “You’re a fucking coward, you little fucking beast!” Daddy’s face is still hidden in shadow, and the frame of his body is blocking out the light from the hall. “You worthless little piece of shit, I’m gonna--,”

“Daddy please--,” he gets only so far into his plea before hands are around his throat and he can’t breathe and he’s looking up into--

But Daddy isn’t there. No, it’s not Daddy. It’s... It’s him. He’s on top of himself, with his own grown up hands wrapped around his own little throat and the words are spilling from his own lips, “Coward, worthless, monster, monster, monster--,”

He can’t get enough air to beg himself to stop, can’t gather the strength to push his own hands away and oh my God, he’s going to kill himself. He’s going to...

His whole body jerks and his arms flail out as if to catch himself from falling. He’s sitting up before he understands where he is, and he’s choking on sobs before he understands that there are tears on his cheeks and dripping down his chin. His breath comes in heaving shudders that shake his whole body, and he isn’t calming down. Won’t be calming down for a long time. He slides back into a position where he’s laying back in bed like a normal person, and he stares up into the darkness at the ceiling for a while before rolling onto his side. Tears are still trekking down his face, now beginning to settle in the crevice of his ear, but he’s too exhausted to wipe them away.

Betty’s hand settles on his hip, her thumb rubbing gentle circles into the jut of bone there. “Bruce?” Her voice is soft but alert, a sign that tells him she’d been awake for quite a while, awake maybe even before he was.

He doesn’t say anything, maybe lets a whimper escape. But he can’t talk to her, not right now, not about this. Not when the only thing worse than not answering is crying, and the creases of his face are still wet.

✧✧✧

They’re seven months in. Betty is starting to swell in her abdomen enough that she’s complaining about being akin to a blimp. The nursery is finished in a deep, calming green that their daughter will be able to grow into, with white accents and trim. Her name is Rebecca Grace--Rebecca after Bruce’s mother, Grace after Grace Hopper, one of the pioneers of computer science--and Betty’s engagement ring flashes whenever she presses a hand to her stomach when Rebecca kicks her.

They’re two months away from being doting parents to a beautiful baby girl who is already the center of her mom’s universe. Bruce, busy with work and stressed out and so, so afraid, is already cracking under the weight of his love for her. He palms the robust curve of Betty’s stomach whenever the chance presents itself, sings her lullabies after Betty’s asleep and won’t hear him, has already filled the nursery with stuffed toys and picture books and music boxes. He’s already calling her Gracie in rare moments when Betty’s relaxed enough to not scold him for shortening their daughter’s name before he’s even called her by the long version, and his love for the little girl that he almost has is already force enough to fight back his insecurity and his terror about being a good parent.

Seven months in. Two months away. And then he can press a kiss to his fiancee’s temple as he holds his baby girl, and it will be like the stars aligned and something in his life finally, _finally_ worked out.

But what’s not working out so well? The serum to create Steve Rogers 2.0. The military project that was supposed to pay him enough to support his family, pay for his wedding, and send his Gracie to Harvard if that’s where she wants to eventually go. The project led by Betty’s father that is currently on the verge of losing all it’s funding and sending a group of scientists who have spent six years of their lives dedicated to the cause home empty handed. It’s really not working out very well. But that’s really not good enough. For anybody.

“Push it into the testing phase,” the General growls from the corner of the lab that he often observes from, his back to the wall and his eye on the exit.

Venteri pales and Wolman barks an incredulous laugh. “Are you kidding? I wouldn’t want to test this on plant matter at this point. The amount of radiation it’d have to be exposed to to trigger any changes would kill not just the test subject, but every other living organism in the room as well. We still need to run a couple dozen chemical tests, we need to measure data, we need--,”

“Then do it,” General Ross interrupts firmly. “Do it. And do it fast. We need to be able to test this on a human subject by the end of the week. If we can’t, we lose everything. Understood? Get it done.” Then he storms out, leaving Bruce and half a dozen other scientists in an impossible situation.

“That’s... There’s no way we can do that,” Venteri mutters.

Wolman steps up right behind Bruce and asks, “What are we going to do?”

Bruce needs this project to go through. They can’t shelf this, they can’t put it down. They have to keep moving forward, they don’t have a choice. He eyes the vial that is carrying their first physical serum, the first serum they’ve manufactured beyond theory after six years of work. There’s a knot forming in his gut even as he says the words, but there isn’t anything else they can do. He turns to his team, all the people who’ve worked under him all these years, and he says, “We do our best. We work fast, and thoroughly. We get it done.”

Seven scientists lock themselves down in a government lab for six days. They test and re-test, make and remake serum after serum. At one point somebody asks, “Why didn’t they get Stark in on this? He’s probably got some of the old data from the first run with Rogers stowed away somewhere. You know that old bastard left it to his son. You know it’s somewhere.”

Someone laughs, and Bruce pretends that he doesn’t shift uncomfortably whenever he hears Tony’s-- _Stark’s_ \-- name in public. It’s been a long time. He’s almost married. He doesn’t wonder. He doesn’t.

It’s on day seven that the General bursts back into the lab to find seven tired, zombie-like scientists strewn across the lab like throwaway toys. There is a lone vial sitting on an otherwise empty steel topped table, almost glowing under the fluorescent lighting. He surveys the scene with a critical eye and a scowl, then turns his attention to Bruce with a focus so intense that he would have wilted under it if he’d had the energy to be standing tall in the first place. As it is, his body can’t react to the harsh grating of the General’s voice when he asks, “Well?”

Bruce only indicates at the vial with a tilt of his head. “There. That’s the best we could do. But Sir, it’s still not... We don’t know how a human test subject will react to it yet.”

“What are you saying?”

“We don’t know if it’s safe, Sir. In fact, it’s probably not.”

But the General doesn’t seem deterred. “Did any of the animal subjects die?”

“No,” Wolman cuts in, her voice tired and her eyes closed. She’s curled up in an office chair in the corner of the room. “No, but it’s been less than a week since we introduced the serum into any of the rat’s blood streams and we’re still collecting data to see if there are any long term effe--,”

“But nothing died,” General Ross reiterates, and nobody says anything because they’re tired of feeling like he’s holding a gun to their heads, tired of feeling like hostages in their own place of employment, tired of arguing safety and ethics with a man who is supposed to be in a position that protects the American public. And because nothing did die. Yet. Test subject CA027 really isn’t looking too good. “So if nothing died, we can assume the trend of non-death will continue if we move forward with human testing, yes?” There is once again no resistance, and he pauses only momentarily before asking the room at large, “What kind of man is best suited to withstand this sort of thing?”

It’s Venteri that speaks up then. “Someone between the ages of twenty and forty, probably. Someone healthy. Someone with a good immune system.”

Bruce jumps in when it looks like the General is going to bite into Venteri. “The serum we’ve created, it’s similar to a virus, really. I mean, it’s not contagious, but it’s going to fight your body. If the goal is for the test subject to live, a strong immune system, a healthy body is going to make a big difference.”

“But is this something the body can beat?” The General snarls, clearly dissatisfied with Bruce’s explanation. Clearly dissatisfied with Bruce.

“We don’t... Know. Yet. So far it doesn’t look like it, but it’s only been a few days since--,”

“Well then I guess we’re going to find out.” His voice is sharp, toxic when he cuts Bruce off. He continues, “I’ll have someone in by the end of the day. Then we’re running this. Understood?”

Those who can manage it nod, most people don’t respond at all as the General stalks from the room. Wolman is in the rolly office chair, watching test subject CA027 valiantly cling to life with glassy eyes. Venteri has somehow found the energy to pace the length of the room and tug on his hair in a near panic. And Bruce...

Bruce needs this to work. He needs this experiment to go through so that they can all cash in and go home. So that he can hang up the lab coat and figure out how to play daddy to an infant. So that he can finally marry the woman who’s stood at his side since he was twenty years old and nearly aimless. But he knows. He knows without a single doubt that they can’t test this serum on anybody. They don’t even know what it’s going to do, how it’s going to act once it’s in the blood stream, and test subject CA027, the only rat that was subjected to both the serum and the radiation, is half dead. They can’t put a human through that. They can’t.

He needs this to work. They have to.

They... they can’t.

Unless.

“I haven’t been seriously sick in almost a decade.”

Wolman snorts. “You had the flu, what? Just before the pregnancy announcement?”

“Yeah,” Bruce answers, chewing on his inner cheek. “For like, two days. I fought it off pretty quick.”

“So what?” Venteri asks, his eyes sharp with curiosity and dark with concern.

“I’m thirty years old. Right in the middle of the ideal age range.”

“Bruce...,”

“No,” he tells them, begs them, and they all look at him wearily as he continues, “Listen. We can’t let this go to any public test subject. We can’t let this leave this lab. But he’s going to make us test it on someone and I. I’m an okay candidate. I know what we’ve been doing, I know the risks, I understand that we. That we don’t know... We can’t test this on someone who doesn’t understand. We can’t. And I can’t ask any of you to do this. But I... I’m an okay candidate. Right?”

“Ross wants to do this thing today,” Wolman states, and her voice is scratchy and strained. “You should call your girl before you do anything this stupid.”

That is exactly what Bruce should do, and so that is exactly what he does, calling Betty right there in the lab, asking her to please come to the base because they really need to talk and he doesn’t want her to worry. He’s worrying, but he doesn’t tell her that.

She’s there in under twenty minutes, with sandwiches and potato chips and juice boxes. They sit together under a willow in the parking lot, and Betty sucks on her grape juice and Bruce rips the crust off the egg salad sandwich and explains to her what he’s thinking he’s going to have to do. Her eyes are serious and his hands are constantly fidgeting, until she reaches for him and tugs him close.

“What happens to us if this hurts you, Bruce?”

He pauses for a long moment because he doesn’t even want to think about it, because the words leave a bad taste in his mouth and he hasn’t even said them yet, but he says, “Well. As long as we test it, everyone gets paid what they were promised. And if they go ahead and test on me, I’ll be paid for that too. So even if something happens to me, even if I were to... You would be set. Even without me, you’d be set.”

Betty’s lips purse together tightly, her brow pinched as she says, “I don’t want you to get hurt. The money is good, fantastic, and I understand that you don’t want to lose that, but I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Bruce takes her left hand in his right, and places his left gently over her abdomen. He doesn’t want to get hurt either but... “Betty. This is going to be done whether it’s done on me or not. And I just. I don’t feel good about that. If it’s me, no matter what happens, you and I will have the resources to be able to cover any medical bills that may pop up, and we’ll have the knowledge that will be able to help us combat any side effects. We can work through it. If it’s someone else, if it’s just a random person who doesn’t know anything about what we’ve done... I just...”

She clutches his hand and bites her lip, but she nods. If the project is going to move forward no matter what, it might as well move forward with a test subject who understands the risks. She wishes Bruce wasn’t so smart, wasn’t so intent on doing the noble thing. She wants him to be safe and healthy and to come home at the end of the day. She wants to be done with the serum, and Steve Rogers, and being lonely and pregnant. She doesn’t want Bruce to have to do this, but she wants it to be done, and if Bruce has to do it to get it done, then. That’s that. “You’re not going to do it without me.”

The statement hangs heavy in the air for a beat, and Bruce blinks slowly. “Sorry?”

“I’m not leaving you here to do this without me,” Betty insists, squeezing Bruce’s hand. “I want to be there.”

“No.” Bruce doesn’t even think about it. “No, absolutely not. Do you know how much radiation we’re going to be using? I don’t care if you’re on the other side of the observation wall; you’re pregnant and I don’t want you or Gracie anywhere near this experiment, do you understand? Not happening.”

“Bruce--,”

“No,” Bruce says again. “Betty please, no.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and then she brushes her fingers over the collar of his shirt. “But what if it changes you into Rogers 2.0?” she asks, and though her hands and voice are steady her lips tremble and her eyes are dark with worry. “I wouldn’t want to miss that, would I?”

Bruce looks her in the eyes, and he's shaking, and he's never been able to fight her when it mattered. He's never been more scared in his life. He kisses her, and then relents. "Guess not," he murmurs into her hair.

✧✧✧

"If I've gone overboard

then I'm begging you

to forgive me

in my haste

when I'm holding you so close to me."

 

**Author's Note:**

> When they talk about the Gulf War, they are referring to the 1990 conflict between the Coalition forces, Iraq, and Kuwait. This conflict has a few other names as well, many of which later became associated with the 2003 Iraq War. 
> 
> Quotes bookending this chapter are both from Crash Into Me by the Dave Matthews Band.


End file.
